Daniel Stern's opinion doesn't seem to factor in how your light looks to oncoming cars. First paragraph of that link he says the beam pattern isn't important. Maybe I took what he said out of context, but I have found a beam pattern to be important. Otherwise it's like aiming a mule.
So, you're claiming that
Daniel Stern said that beam pattern doesn't matter? That is literally the opposite of literally everything I have ever seen or heard the man say on the subject, so let's read the first paragraph of his
aim page together and see what it says:
No matter how good (or bad) your headlamps and fog lamps might be, they'll work effectively and safely only if they're correctly aimed. Lamp aim is by far the main thing that determines how well you can (or can't) see at night—it's even more important than the output and beam pattern of the headlamps themselves. Here's a real example of how crucial it is: if you're using the shine-on-a-wall method, aiming a low beam just 2.3 cm (0.9 inch) lower than it should be cuts 26 m (85 feet) off your seeing distance at night!
And your takeaway from this is "He says the beam pattern isn't important"? Um...dude...no.
I would have zero concern going with the TYC or any other aftermarket brand
But that doesn't mean there are no concerns, it just means you don't know/care about them. Here are some concerns worth having: it's well documented that even the "best" of the aftermarket headlamps are significantly inferior to genuine OE lamps in terms of performance (beam pattern; less seeing light and more glare and backscatter); construction (quality of build and materials, fit and finish), and durability.
At least with Ebay you have 100% buyer's protection and have zero risk in being out $$ (outside of the return time and fuel) if they don't work.
"Don't work" isn't the question at hand. There's a big stretch of distance between a headlamp so poorly made that it doesn't even fit the vehicle, doesn't hold the bulb securely, etc (not very common)...and one that fits and accepts the bulb but doesn't come close to OE performance/durability (very common).
I put LEDs into my Silverado and all it did was blind oncoming cars. I couldn't see any better
Right, because "LED bulbs" do not work effectively or safely in halogen headlamps. They mess up the beam pattern, because they're the wrong kind of light source. for the optic.
My current truck has a headlight assembly with a different beam pattern.
The results are completely different.
These kinds of opinions you're putting out are excellent examples of why headlamp performance can only be really measured objectively. Subjective opinions are usually wrong, because human eyes aren't the right tool for the job. And LEDs are the wrong kind of light source for halogen headlamps. That is going to change eventually, as technical standards are being developed in parallel with development of legitimate LED retrofits for halogen lamps...but that's still in the future. For now, "LED bulbs" aren't effective, safe or legal.
At work we aim lights on bay doors...it's not the gold standard but it works for us.
Depending on your actual procedure (how far is the truck from the bay door, how flat is your floor, are you measuring or just kinda sorta pointing them so they look about right, etc) this may or may not be better than nothing.
Would my answer carry more weight if I admitted to running a service company that has a fleet of over 200 trucks with my own in-house repair shop...and that we buy the cheap headlamp assemblies off ebay?
Sounds like typical fleet priorities: minimum repair price and shoptime, so buy cheap headlamps and toss 'em on with a repair standard of "space on front of the truck is filled, lights light up on low and high beam". Why would that make your answer carry more weight when the question at hand is maximizing the driver's ability to see?
put some good Autozone bulbs in them
No such thing. For your education on how much bulb choice matters (hint: a lot) see
here and
here.
I was just trying to provide an affordable solution to the OP...the same solution that works fine for my fleet trucks.
I'm sure you really believe it "works fine" for your fleet trucks, probably because nobody's drawn the connection between cheap, off-brand lights with cheapo Autozone bulbs (or "LED bulbs") and sloppy aim, and the crash involvement rate in your fleet. But aside from that...the OP of this thread didn't ask "Help, I need to get my 2000 Mercury put back together for as cheap of cost as possible".
Headlamps often make the difference between life and death; flashlights usually don't. So...kind of a little strange how you don't seem to care a feather or a fig about the difference between a good headlamp and a crappy one, but in other sections of this site you seem to care deeply about it when the topic is flashlights.
